It’s The Ontario Tower Buzzers
The other week, the Ontario baseball club unveiled the name of their new ballpark. Yesterday, the club unveiled the name and look for the 2026 season.
The Ontario baseball announced at a unveiling event on Thursday night, the club adopts the name Ontario Tower Buzzers. The name comes from the movie Top Gun in which Tom Cruise says the following line: “Sorry Goose, but it’s time to buzz the tower.”
The club sticks with the aviation theme as a nod to the name giver of their ballpark: Ontario International Airport (ONT for short).
The Tower Buzzers, will replace the Modesto Nuts as part of a musical chairs in the California League, where the Seattle A-team will leave Modesto for San Bernadino (Inland Empire 66ers) and the Angels A-team, after sixteen years will return to Rancho Cucamonga (Quakes) to replace the Dodgers who will leave for Ontario.
Tower Buzzers general manager Allan Benavides stated: “The Ontario International Airport is a huge player in our market, transformational for the city and economy and we wanted to lean in.” Ontario’s airport was initially known as Latimer Field. In 1943 it was an Army Air Corps training and operations base, and the Tower Buzzers’ identity is an homage to that era as well. “We want to pay tribute to the mavericks who flew those planes,” said Benavides. “It was a tiny little airport at first, and they made it into a much bigger thing.” As a result, the team’s mascot is named Maverick, a bee who wears aviator glasses.
The new club will sport the following colors: Red, white, yellow and two shades of blue (Dodger and sky). The primary logo features a bee buzzing past a control tower. The new look was designed by Studio Simon’s Dan Simon, a Louisville-based designer who has created a lot of other minor league logos and looks.
According to Dan Simon, there’s not a lot that’s ‘Minor League’ that you can deal with when there is an aviation theme. “But because of the word Buzzers in the team name, that gave us a bee character to add a fun and whimsical Minor League element,” Simon said.
The bee wears a scarf and is a significant part of the jersey. First of all it buzzes on top ot the Ontario word mark on the road jersey, but it also buzzers through the loops of the Zs of the home jersey. Next to this, the bee has a prominent spot on the left sleeve of the home jersey and on the chest of the yellow alternate jersey
As a cap nut, I like the caps the club offers. The Alternate 1 cap sports a bee head that wears pilot goggles and a red scarf.
The home cap sports the abbreviation ONT, which is, as written before, the abbreviation for Ontario International Airport.
Last but not least, the Alternate 2 cap is bright yellow, also with the letters ONT on the front and with a Dodger Blue lid.
Both Alternate 1 and home cap sport a white button on top, totally in Dodgers style. The Alternate 2 cap sports a blue button in Dodger Blue.